Love of the Sea
by CrazyVividDreamer
Summary: It is forbidden for a mermaid to go to the surface or even interact with humans. Mermaids hate humans. Well, except for Amu. The humans are a curious subject for her, and she wants to learn more about them. A sea storm gives her that chance. She saves the pirate captain, Ikuto, from drowning. There's an instant connection, but there's no way they can be together… Is there? Amuto!


**~Love of the Sea~**

**~Chapter One~**

In Amu Hinamori's world, it was forbidden to visit the "other world", the world above her. Fearful of those above them, the King had enforced a law that did not let them go to the surface. Only extremely trained mermaids and mermen were able to trek their way to the surface of the water. And only then, they had to be careful of the land lovers, the humans. There was to be no interaction of any kind with the race that that ruled the lands. Anyone caught going to the surface without permission was punished with jail time… and in severe cases, death.

Amu never heeded the warnings of her friends and family. Her curious mind could not be contained. No law would be able to keep her from exploring and discovering new things. To hell with them!

As she sat in her classroom that day, her mind began to wander. Her gaze slipped over the classroom, boredom taking over quickly. She already knew what the teacher was talking about anyway. These lessons were simply something that wasted her time. The only reason why she was here was because she had to attend classes in order to receive exploring privileges.

Leaning her head into her open palm, she stared out of the opening of the coral wall to see the kingdom. Thousands of bright and colorful fish swam by, immediately grabbing her attention. The view was spectacular. Colorful pieces of coral sprouted everywhere, adding an even brighter feeling to the ocean floor. She hummed quietly to herself, watching the fish interact with each other.

She heard the soft clatter of her fellow mermaid and mermen classmates getting up before the bell. These people were as ready to leave as she was, maybe even more. Immediately, the voice of the teachers sounded over the loudness of shuffling. She tried to take control of the class again, telling them to all sit down until the bell rang. Her efforts were futile because no one cared or listened to her at that point. There was only around fifteen seconds of class left.

_Ring!_

Ah! The sound of freedom! Time to get out of this hell hole! She shoved her way ahead of her classmates. Amu was out of there faster than quite humanly-mermaidly?-possible. Making sure she was not followed, she began her journey to her secret hiding place. Once she had made it there, she quickly threw down her stuff and scrambled into her more adventuring type of clothes. Amu was out of her secret cave in a flash and was already swimming up to the surface in less than three minutes. As she neared the surface, she felt her stomach fill up with butterflies.

Ah, there was that feeling of being rebellious and living on the wild side. Amu was never really a good girl; her curious mind never allowed that. Her parents had learned to live with the fact that if she was gone for a few days… well, she was probably off somewhere discovering new places. Yet, they had never thought she would head to the surface to do the discovering. Her parents were too trusting of their little girl, but she _was _sixteen, the age of an adult in mermaid years. She could technically do whatever she wanted, and her parents would not be able to stop her.

She stuck her tongue out. God, she sounded like a total spoiled brat right there. She sighed, shaking her head. _Snap out of it, Amu. _She chided herself. No need to be a brat. With her internal monologue, she failed to notice that she was almost near her destination. When she did, her hand could practically feel the rays from the sun.

She grew nervous once more as she neared the top, even if she had gone up many times before. Her excitement very clearly overwhelmed her nervousness soon enough. She felt a smile split across her face; her eyes shone with a happiness and curiosity. She was comfortable with this feeling of unease, and she knew it came with the price of seeing the world. Not the world that her society was trying to keep her chained to.

The real world.

The world with adventure, love, and pirates!

….

Inside his cabin, Ikuto stood behind his wooden desk, staring at the map in front of him. As he looked at the map, his hand played with a dagger, throwing it up into the air then catching it. His narrowed eyes studied the piece of parchment carefully, calculating where the next port would be. They would need to dock soon since supplies were running low. He owned hoped they would get there quick enough. His compass sat beside the map, the arrow tilting back and forth from North to East.

"Captain!" A voice sounded at his cabin door followed by a heavy knocking with thumping fists.

_One moment of silence… that's all I ask! _Ikuto thought to himself before sighing. It was never silent for long on this ship. He shook his head. _But I'd rather have a loud ship than a silent one._

"Get in." He merely replied, not looking up from the map. It was probably not that important. Most of the time, it was just trivial matters.

"Captain, there's goin' ta be a storm." One of his crew members told him, his breath coming out in huffs. He looked like he had run the whole way to the cabin. This was probably going to be a bad storm…

Ikuto sighed, flinging his dagger into the wooden table.Great, another storm to deal with. Hopefully, they would make it out alive and not lose men. His dagger landed on the big giant red X on the map. Only a few more days until that treasure was his… maybe a few weeks. He looked up at the man that was speaking. His eyes simply said, _Then, let us get on with it._

Ikuto followed the man out of his cabin, tilting his head up to look at the sky. Ikuto took in a deep breath, instantly getting a lungful of salt-like air. Indeed, the sky was beginning to gray. He could practically smell the rain that was coming. The wind whipped at his face as he begun to shout orders to his crew.

….

Amu's pink haired head popped up above the waters. Instantly, she only let her eyes show, but her head of pink hair definitely drew attention. Why did she have to be born with such attention grabbing hair?! No one else had hair this weird and bright. She sighed. Genetics!

Amu cursed, looking for something to help to better conceal her. _Not like there really would be anything_, she thought, _it's the open sea, for god's sake, Amu!_

She would have to be extra careful. There were ships that often roamed this part of the sea. As she glanced upwards, she noticed the darkening sky and squealed in delight. She would be concealed now. It would be hard to spot her in the rolling waters when it would start to rain. Ah, the thrill of sea storms! She could hardly believe her luck.

Glancing around, she hoped there would something else that would interest her until the storm came. Her honey gold eyes spotted a ship, and a grin lit up her face. She began her swim over to the ship full of sailors, maybe they would be pirates! First, a sea storm… now she would be able to see a ship full of pirates! She had never really seen pirates before, only from afar. The sea storm enabled her to come closer without the fear of being spotted.

Suddenly, she could feel rain start to hit her face. The rain grew in a matter of minutes, and the waves started to become violent. A grin split across her face once more, and if she had feet, she would've jumped for joy. She could hear the rumble of thunder and see the streak of lightning lighting up the sky. The crack of the lightning came closer than she would've thought. It nearly hit the ship. Waves started to crash upon it, the vessel struggling to stay afloat.

As she watched from afar, she had no idea what to do to help. But that was the thing. She _couldn't _do anything to help. She could not have contact with humans. It was another forbidden law, and definitely something she would not do… no matter how much her curiosity forced her to. She could hear the desperate cries from the humans as they tried to keep the storm from sinking their ship.

Almost as if they had no chance for survival, Amu watched as the storm began to wear the crew down and eventually take over their ship. This was a very nasty storm indeed. A lot of men had piled into smaller boats and stayed afloat, watching their ship die. She watched the great and beautiful ship slowly sink down into the water. As she turned to leave, she heard a single word that caused her to turn back around.

"Captain!"

….

_**A.N. – Well, this was supposed to be a one-shot… but it ended up being much… much… more. I really need to update my other stories, but I have been wanting to write a story that involved the sea, mermaids, or pirates! Since I'm going to the beach (What perfect timing! I'll be writing a story about the sea… by the sea!)tomorrow, I may be able to update tomorrow. Who knows? I could get really bored and just start writing. But, knowing me, you guys probably shouldn't be looking forward to that update **_**too **_**much… Haha… **_

_**On another note, I don't think this story will end up being that long. But I don't know, maybe it will! I guess, I'll just have to see how the story plays out.**_

_**Happy Reading!**_


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